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PRHSKNTHl) BY 



Memorial to 

Henry Codman Potter 




COPYHIBHT, 13DA,BV A.F. BRADLEY, NEW vaRK 









0itmovml 

TO 

HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

BY 

The People's Institute 

^* J 

COOPER UNION 

Sunday 
December Twentieth 

MCMVIII 



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M C M I X 






Gift 
15 S '09 



Order of Exercises 

Overture, " Tannhauser "..... Wagner 
orchestra 

Opening Address, 

prof. charles sprague smith 

Hymn, "O God our Help in Ages Past.'' 

O God, our help in ages past, 

Our hope for years to come. 
Our shelter from the stormy blast 

And our eternal home: 

Under the shadow of Thy throne 

Thy saints have dwelt secure; 
SuflGicient is Thine arm alone, 

And our defense is sure. 

Before the hills in order stood, 

Or earth received her frame. 
From everlasting Thou art God, 

To endless years the same. 

A thousand ages in Thy sight 

Are like an evening gone; 
Short as the watch that ends the night 

Before the rising sun. 

V 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, 

Bears all its sons away; 
They fly, forgotten, as a dream 

Dies at the opening day. 

O God, our help in ages past. 

Our hope for years to come. 
Be Thou our guide while life shall last, 

And our eternal home. 

Address, ''Bishop Potter, the Man/' 

THE REV. PERCY STICKNEY GRANT 

Te Detjm Latjdamus . Richard Henry Warren 

The Musical Setting Inscribed to Bishop Potter 

in 1889. 
soloists: chorus: orchestra 

Address, '' The Liberalism of Bishop Potter,'' 

RABBI JOSEPH SILVERMAN 

Jubilate Amen Max Bruch 

SOPRANO solo: chorus: orchestra 

Poem, " The Warrior Priest," 

MR. RICHARD WATSON GILDER 

Address, ''Bishop Potter and Organized Labor,'' 

MR. JOHN MITCHELL 

At THE Hero's Grave, Opus 85. Anton Dvorak 

ORCHESTRA 

vi 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

Address, " Bishop Potter and the Public,'^ 

THE HON. SETH LOW 

The Hallelujah Chorus, from " The Messiah " 

Handel 
chorus: orchestra 

Address, ''Bishop Potter and the Negro,'' 

MR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

Chorale, " Now Thank We All Our God,'' 

Now thank we all our God, 

With heart and hand and voices! 

Who wondrous things hath done. 
In whom His world rejoices; 

Who from our mothers' arms 
Hath blessed us on our way 

With countless gifts of love; 
And still is ours to-day. 

Oh, may this bounteous God 

Through all our life be near us 
With ever joyful hearts 

And blessed peace to cheer us 
And keep us in His grace, 

And guide us when perplexed, 
And free us from all ills 

In this world and the next. 

Fifth ^ympylo^y/' Last Movement," . Beethoven 

ORCHESTRA 

vii 



The music was rendered hy the Choir 
of the Church of the Ascension, aug- 
mented to fifty voices, and an orches- 
tra of forty musicians, under the 
direction of Richard Henry Warren. 



Biographical 
Notice 



Biographical Notice 

HENRY CODMAN POTTER was 
born at Schenectady, New York, on 
May 25, 1834. His father, the 
Reverend Alonzo Potter, was a professor in 
Union College, in that town, and his mother 
was Maria Nott, daughter of the Reverend 
Doctor Eliphalet Nott, president of the col- 
lege. In 1845 his father became Bishop of 
the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Penn- 
sylvania. 

Henry Codman Potter was one of a large 
family of children. The limited means of 
his father, who had only his salary, made 
it necessary for each of the sons early in 
life to determine upon his future vocation. 
After attending the Episcopal Academy in 
Philadelphia, Henry Codman Potter found 
employment at the age of sixteen in a 

3 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

wholesale dry-goods house in that city. 
But the call to the service of the ministry 
was stronger than the attraction of busi- 
ness ; and he therefore entered the theological 
seminary at Alexandria, in Virginia, where 
one of his classmates, then and forever 
after his beloved and intimate friend, was 
Phillips Brooks. After graduation from 
the seminary, he was ordained to the priest- 
hood in 1858.' His first parish was at 
Greensburg, in Pennsylvania, where he re- 
mained until 1859. In that year he was 
called to the rectorship of St. John's Church 
at Troy, New York, and continued there 
until 1866, when he became assistant minis- 
ter of Trinity Church in Boston. In 1868 
he became rector of Grace Church in the 
city of New York, and from that time until 
his death on July 21, 1908, he was a resi- 
dent of this city. In 1883 he was elected 
Assistant Bishop of New York, and later, 
upon the death of his uncle, Horatio Potter, 
in 1887, Bishop of New York. 

His voice and influence in the councils 
of the Church were always on the side of 
liberality and progress. His broad-minded 

4 



HENRY COD MAN POTTER 

and friendly sentiments toward other re- 
ligious bodies and his desire for the recog- 
nition of a common brotherhood and a 
common cause with them were controlling 
factors in his life and efforts. But as a great 
citizen, even more than as a great bishop, 
Bishop Potter w^on the confidence and the 
esteem of the people of this city and of the 
country at large. His active participation 
in movements for good city government and 
for better political and social conditions, and 
his brave w^ords often spoken upon such 
subjects, helped to establish principles which 
for a long time had few supporters, but which 
now are recognized as sound and true. No 
consideration of whom he might displease 
ever caused him to hesitate to take the part 
or to espouse the cause which he deemed to 
be right. 

The work which he did lives after him, 
not only in what he accomplished in his life- 
time, but also in the memory of his courage 
and his wisdom and his love for his fellow- 
men. 



The 
Addresses 



Prof. Charles Sprague Smith 

SOME years ago, at a dinner to Pres- 
ident Gompers, of the American Fed- 
eration of Labor, given, if I err 
not, at a time when he was on his way to 
Porto Rico, the presiding oflScer of the 
evening, Ernest H. Crosby, introduced 
Bishop Potter as the People's Bishop and 
added that, whatever the creed of those 
present, none would dispute his rightful 
claim to that title. To honor him as the 
People's Bishop we gather here to-night. 
In Ernest Crosby's mind in choosing the 
phrase, ''the People's Bishop" there was, I 
conceive, a certain limitation. He used the 
term in the sense in which we ordinarily 
employ it here, one rich in content, full 
of inspiration, but referring exclusively to 
that section of the people commonly denomi- 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
nated "the wage-earners/' I would speak 
to-night of Bishop Potter not merely as the 
People's Bishop in the restricted sense, but 
in a larger sense, for he was born to the 
world of culture, lived in that world, was 
an aristocrat in the true meaning of that 
word. That he passed from that circle 
forth into the circle of the wage-earners and 
became a democrat without ceasing to be an 
aristocrat is to his credit and gave a large- 
ness to his nature, an opportunity to his 
powers which he could not have known had 
he ceased to be member of the world of 
culture on becoming comrade and brother 
of the workingman. For, in the world of 
books, in the world of association with all 
that culture brings, there is much to be 
learned, much to be won in outlook, in in- 
sight, in refinement of nature. Through the 
cultivation of letters one develops a sense 
of beauty and proportion, one learns to ap- 
preciate values; material things hold not 
the same place in one's judgment that they 
would otherwise have held. Through the 
study of history one gains a larger, more 
exact conception of the forces which con- 

10 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

trol in human development and acquires a 
greater patience in attending upon the slow 
processes of evolution. These and other 
teachings of the world of culture, with their 
influence upon his mind and life, he could 
convey to the world of the wage-earner and, 
similarly, in returning from that world, he 
could and did bring back what he had 
learned in fellowship with the workers, that 
immediate intuition into history in the mak- 
ing, that perception, so keen, so personal, 
of justice and injustice, and could make his 
privileged associates hear the cry of the 
oppressed; make them know, through the 
intimacy of his own personal contact there- 
with the great movement that is going for- 
ward for a righteous reorganization of hu- 
man society. So this man, who was urbane 
in the world of culture, witty with the witty, 
and at the same time trusted comrade of the 
workingman, in the large sense of the word 
became the People's Bishop. 

I asked a member of his family to indi- 
cate to me the dominant note in his nature, 
in order that I might give it to you in turn. 
I was told that the dominant note was his 

11 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

sense of human brotherhood, that wherever 
he went and with whomsoever he associated, 
he reached out in sympathy and comrade- 
ship a brother's hand. It might be in the 
world of culture with men of letters; it 
might be with workingmen, with the con- 
ductor who met him on the train; with the 
laboring man by the roadside; with labor- 
ing man and conductor who had long hours 
of labor he could sympathize, because his 
own hours of labor were also long. That 
dominant sense of human brotherhood, that 
desire and readiness to be brother of all 
men, make it especially fitting that his mem- 
ory should be honored by us here to-night 
in The People's Institute, because the note 
that we try to strike dominantly here is the 
note of human brotherhood. That is the 
tenet upon which we all agree, differ as we 
may in our religious and social convictions 
— a steadfast faith in, and recognition of 
human brotherhood as the fundamental so- 
cial truth. 

I want to add a personal testimonial. 
When I came to New York, some twenty- 
eight years ago, my first ambitions were 

12 



HENRY COD MAN POTTER 

kindled in connection with the institution 
with which I was then associated, Colum- 
bia University. I wanted to help make it 
great and powerful, representative of the 
imperial city where it was located, and in 
that ambition and endeavor I turned to 
one and another for counsel and aid. Then 
first I came into touch with Dr. Potter. He 
was not then Bishop, but Rector of Grace 
Church, and from that time forth, when- 
ever I endeavored to do anything that 
seemed to me for the common weal, I turned 
to him and always found in him advice and 
encouragement. Those of you who were 
present last spring will recall that it is only 
a few months since he stood upon this plat- 
form and delivered to an audience not as 
large as this, but filling well the hall, an 
audience composed especially of young men, 
the first voter's oath, pronouncing to them 
the oath and they repeating it after him, 
pledging themselves to be loyal to America, 
loyal to their highest selves. So it is not 
merely a personal testimonial that I would 
bear to him, but also one in the name of all 
who during Bishop Potter's lifetime sought, 

13 



HENRY COD MAN POTTER 

each in his own way, to work for an ideal 
that had within it the communal betterment 
and turned not in vain to him for support. 
We have gathered here a number of times 
to do honor to the memory of distinguished 
New York citizens, those whom we have 
esteemed eminent. Our first gathering of 
this kind was in honor of Henry George, 
the printer, the tribune of the people; the 
man who, pondering long over the problem 
of human injustice and suffering, believed 
he had solved it in proclaiming the doctrine 
of the single tax. Whether we agree with 
him or not, we all recognize that Henry 
George's heart and mind were loyal always 
to the cause of the people, and we honored 
ourselves in honoring him. Thereafter we 
held a memorial service to his friend and 
comrade, his brother in labor. Father 
McGlynn. Dear Father McGlynn! If 
Bishop Potter was the People's Bishop, 
Father McGlynn was the People's Priest. 
As long as he lived he used to come at inter- 
vals to this platform, give us his blessing 
and receive our applauding welcome. Af- 
ter Father McGlynn we held services me- 

14 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

morial to him who founded this hall, a New 
York workingman, giving it to New York 
workingmen, and leaving in his testament 
the injunction that whatever else was neg- 
lected in this building, the orderly study of 
those sciences which qualify for true demo- 
cratic citizenship should never be neglected. 
Because The People's Institute undertook 
this work in the spirit of Peter Cooper, we 
deemed it fitting that we should honor his 
memory; and thereafter William H. Bald- 
win, a Trustee of The People's Institute, 
dying suddenly in the midst of a most prom- 
ising, efficient career, received from us a 
memorial service; so, too, Ernest H. Crosby, 
born to comfort, surrounded by luxury, con- 
secrated with passion to the cause of the 
workers. Now to this list we add the name 
of Henry Codman Potter. I want to place 
for a moment the name of William H. 
Baldwin over against that of Bishop Pot- 
ter. Baldwin fell a young, strong man, 
with lifework unachieved, and there must 
always blend in the memory of him the note 
of sorrow, of regret for an unfinished task, 
the life so full of splendid springtime prom- 

15 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

ise untimely ended; but when we think of 
Bishop Potter, who, in a long, well-rounded 
life, realized his highest self, and achieved 
so much, there should not abide in our 
thought of him, or sound in our service for 
him at all dirge of defeat, but rather psean 
of victory. These whom I have recalled 
and many others whom I might name, a 
multitude, too, nameless, uninspired by 
public recognition, are fellow-toilers striving 
together in order that the new day dawn. 
They are, as it were, blazing a trail up the 
mountain of the present, up to its very 
summit, whence we are to look over into 
the promised land, blazing a trail which 
shall yet become a broad highway over 
which the nations will pass. Beyond lies 
that land which we often see when we 
gather together here — behold in vision, 
and it is not a mere dream, the mirage of 
an overheated imagination; rather is it a 
clear vision seen by the presaging intellect 
that has placed social phenomenon beside 
social phenomenon, collating them, com- 
paring them, and behind these phenomena 
discovered the principles whereof they are 

16 



HENRY COD MAN POTTER 

expressions, discerned the eternal social laws 
that are ever working to reconstruct human 
society. As we have followed the action of 
these laws, beyond, their goal is perceived, 
that new social order based on the recog- 
nition of human brotherhood. Therefore, 
my brothers, we are to-night honoring in 
this service one who was our brother, our 
comrade in labor, one of the leaders toward 
that new, higher social order that is to be. 

We are to listen to a series of brief ad- 
dresses presenting Bishop Potter from dif- 
ferent sides, so that we may learn more 
about him and may draw inspiration from 
this larger knowledge of his character and 
personality. The first one who will speak 
to us, the Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, will 
describe him as he knew him intimately as 
a man. 



17 



Rev. Percy Stickney Grant 

WE honor the man behind the gun, 
but not him alone, for when we hon- 
or any position, dignity, or title, it 
is the man behind these we are really honor- 
ing. The best thing a man can give to us 
is himself, not something outside himself, 
even if his usefulness seems to be founded 
upon technical knowledge or upon power. 
The various stations and dignities which 
pedestal notable persons are merely con- 
venient places, in the intention of the social 
organization that created them, for rallying 
in time of need around a man. For an ap- 
peal to a great man is not an appeal to his 
laurels, but to his wisdom and his love. 

America has been fortunate and unfor- 
tunate in its ideal of a man. Freedom, lib- 
erty, and equality; self-dependence and fra- 

18 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

ternity have created the noblest of ideals. 
But independence has often degenerated 
into rowdyism, or into churlish disregard 
of social use, and so has degraded virility 
to uncouthness. However, the rowdy is no 
longer the hero of the city boys, nor the 
circus clown of the country boys. The type 
is passing except where an Uncle Somebody 
still rejoices in the old ideal, his lips stained 
with tobacco juice, his tongue polluted with 
coarse stories, such as old men tell boys in 
the haying field, around the cider jug, or 
behind the barn; his breast elated at in- 
fractions of polite rules, as if he had stormed 
a fort. 

Manhood is particularly the test, in our 
time, of ecclesiastical office. When the 
Church was a state, ecclesiastical position 
carried with it power. But except where the 
Church still has temporal pretensions or is 
united organically to the state, the digni- 
taries themselves must be powerful indi- 
viduals before they can be helped to much 
influence by the position. 

A Protestant bishop must gain his influ- 
ence less from place than from personality; 

19 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
for his place is surrounded by an atmosphere 
of such conservatism and trammelled by 
such routine that unless he be indeed greatly 
above the average he becomes smaller after 
his election to the Episcopate than he was 
before. 

Dignity which comes from eminent po- 
sition is something like a form in the arts 
— say of poetry or music — unless the one 
essaying it dominates it absolutely he loses 
and does not gain consideration. 

The clergy are the friends of the work- 
ingman. Twenty years ago Professor Ely 
in his book, ^' The Labor Problem in Amer- 
ica," stated that more clergymen were sym- 
pathetically interested in the problems of 
workingmen than could be found in any 
other class or profession. No other group 
that I know of combines their disinterested- 
ness with their wide and daily intercourse 
with the rich and the poor. The American 
clergy, too, unlike the clergy of some Euro- 
pean countries, are an educated body. In 
many of our theological schools students are 
not admitted unless they are college gradu- 
ates. In the diocese of New York an ap- 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
plicant for ordination must have a college 
education or its equivalent before he is even 
allowed to study for the ministry. And 
after this elaborate education, lasting often 
till a man is twenty-six or twenty-eight 
years old, during which he has been at 
his own expense, he undertakes a career of 
no pecuniary attractiveness. The average 
Methodist minister is paid less than a mixer 
of mortar. The average Episcopal minis- 
ter less than a carpenter. But they are sat- 
isfied to be useful and their pride is that 
they contribute to the community so much 
more than they consume, and their prayer is 
to be placed where they can do most good. 

The American clergy are the Tribunes of 
the People with only the power of love and 
persuasion; who see with their hearts as 
well as their eyes and would soften the 
stoniness of heedless prosperity and would 
establish justice in brotherly bargaining. 

Bishop Potter was a man and an Ameri- 
can clergyman. He was a handsome man; 
to the end of his life attractive to look upon. 
He was careful of his appearance and al- 

21 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
ways dressed appropriately. He had a 
strong body. As a young man he was 
much given to swimming, for which his 
deep chest fitted him. He always loved 
horses and rode or drove one all his life. 
Once when he was rector at Troy, his uncle, 
the Bishop of New York, visited him, on 
his way to some out-of-town parish. Our 
Bishop Potter insisted on driving him. The 
horse was so young and skittish that the 
old Bishop was in terror of his life, and 
sharply informed his nephew that when 
he visited Troy again he would dispense 
with his unclerical services. 

He had abundant wit which, however, 
he did not show against a background of 
coarseness. I was his daily companion for 
nearly six months, often on steamers, cars, 
or in hotels, sleeping in the same room with 
him. His refinement was without a flaw. 
He was the least imposed upon of clergy- 
men, yet without suspicion or cynicism. 
He had not only power but polish, indeed, 
the more power like a sword, because of his 
polish. The best democrat is apt to be the 
best aristocrat, for unless a man is a lover 

22 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
of the best things I am not flattered by his 
willingness to fraternize with me. But to 
be treated as an equal by those who know 
and love the best is the final distinction in 
a democracy. 

Bishop Potter, although a lover of the 
people, although accessible and plain in his 
habits, was not one who thought it demo- 
cratic to be lacking in pride. It pleased 
him that some of his ancestors in England 
had been men of such probity in their craft 
— that of dyeing — that the saying True as 
Potter's blue, or true blue, sprang from 
their fast colors. It must have pleased him 
when Phillips Brooks called Bishop Pot- 
ter's father, who was Bishop of Pennsyl- 
vania, the greatest and most real bishop he 
had ever known. 

Another expression of his pride was per- 
haps seen in a maxim of his ''Never ex- 
plain." Pride, courage and reticence are 
compacted in this maxim. He never ex- 
plained that the Subway Tavern was no 
child of his, but of a friend; that he did not 
say prayers there, or ask that the doxology 
be sung. He never explained that views he 

23 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

uttered before his convention which were 
thought to be in criticism of a respected 
clergyman at that time on trial for heresy 
were views he had held and expressed in 
print long before. And here came in an- 
other side of his pride. He held or fancied 
he held the creed in its literal interpretation. 
His nature was so simple on some sides and 
he had been so little influenced by the his- 
torical method which assigns relative and 
not absolute values to historical monument, 
that he could not understand that gradual 
decay of literalism which for the sake of 
continuity is willing for a transition period 
to use an old symbol. In this pride of 
straightforwardness he was at one with 
popular instinct, even if not with the actual 
habits of mankind in their relation to old 
institutions. So in reply to newspaper at- 
tack the Bishop never explained, but con- 
tented himself with the remark that he was 
never quite sure he was right until he woke 
up in the morning and found himself at- 
tacked by the Sun. 

Bishop Potter learned from his father, 
not to contend about non-essentials. Con- 

24 



HENRY COD MAN POTTER 

sequently, he went straight to the heart of a 
subject and was broad enough to embrace 
in his sympathies the many ways in which, 
through temperament, race, condition, re- 
ligion, men fight under different standards 
for the same thing. 

Yet while he would not contend for non- 
essentials he was not averse to contend. 
He had the temperament of the champion 
of great causes, who is willing to give and 
to receive hard knocks. 

The Bishop had a kind heart and w^as full 
of gratuitous kindnesses. On the steamer 
going to Asia, there were many forlorn 
women, going out to the Philippines to join 
their husbands. They were full of fears 
for the safety of their husbands who were in 
the army and at the front; full of uncer- 
tainty of how they were to live in the is- 
lands; they were heartsick, homesick, and 
seasick. I have seen the Bishop throw 
himself down in a steamer chair beside one 
of these bundles of despair and be as en- 
tertaining as if he were conversing with a 
prime minister, or should I say a president. 

His kindness sometimes took the form of 
25 



HENRY COD MAN POTTER 
tact. He was fond of Archbishop Corri- 
gan. I have seen these two meet upon the 
street and quite forget their business in 
pleasant chat. At the twenty-fifth anni- 
versary of the General Conference of Or- 
ganized Charities, celebrated at Carnegie 
Hall in this city, the Archbishop spoke first, 
then Bishop Potter. Although an Irish- 
man the Archbishop did not orate, but 
spoke in so low a voice as scarcely to be 
heard. Bishop Potter fearing his friend 
was disappointed at the reception of his 
speech, which was practicably inaudible, 
began his own by repeating in his clear, 
penetrating voice his predecessor's point, 
then still further to lift his spirits he told 
this story. 

"To-day one of my clergy had occasion 
to visit the kitchen of his rectory, where he 
found an altercation going on between his 
Irish cook and an Italian collector of refuse. 
The cook was not sparing the scavenger. 
The clergyman tried to interfere. 'Brid- 
get,' he said, 'you ought not to speak that 
way to a poor man who is about his work.' 
'I have a right to, your Reverence,' said 

26 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
Bridget. 'He comes to take away dirt and 
he leaves more dirt than he takes/ 'But/ 
continued the parson, ' don't you know that 
this man is an Italian, of the same race as 
the Pope; and that the Pope is infallible?' 
*Ah/ retorted the cook, 'Italian is it! The 
Pope is an Italian and infallible. And sure 
if he were an Irishman he would be ten 
times as infallible as he is.' '' Archbishop 
Corrigan beamed with pleasure and, per- 
haps, sympathy. 

Bishop Potter loved the plain people. 
His residence one summer on the East Side, 
in the Pro-Cathedral on Stanton Street, was 
but a token of a constant interest. His 
representative, still living in that house, 
started an uprising against the municipal 
corruption contaminating the homes of the 
poor that drove the ruling party from power. 
Nor was that end contributed to more 
trenchantly than by Bishop Potter's letter 
to Mayor Van Wyck, which has no superior 
for polite invective in the English language. 
If he had not spent himself in so many 
directions for the public good he might have 
been living now. Even into his exercise — his 

27 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

daily horseback ride, which became more 
and more infrequent, he carried the burden 
of his work; for he said whatever problems 
he took into the saddle were solved when 
he dismounted. 

But the burdens of the poor and unfortu- 
nate bore more and more heavily upon him. 
To his own observation his clergy appeared 
before him with them. Fancy the weight 
carried by a man in New York upon whom 
hundreds of clergymen place their own 
burden — the burden of their hearts and of 
their parishes. More and more he was 
called upon to arbitrate in contentions be- 
tween employers and employees. He felt 
the honor and the responsibility of this 
position, and true as Potter blue were his 
decisions. He perceived the increasing 
gravity of the industrial problem and it op- 
pressed him. 

Late one winter afternoon, from a day 
spent with an arbitration board, he went 
to the house of a friend for a cup of tea. 
His face was ashen and he seemed depressed 
and exhausted. My friend asked him what 
had so wearied and agitated him. He ex- 

28 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

plained what he had been working at all 
day and then exclaimed: ''I am unhappy 
because I see that I am not going to live 
long enough to right the wrongs of the 
people/' Shortly after this he had a slight 
stroke of apoplexy which withdrew him, 
permanently, from his full activity. 



The Chairman 

THERE is a principle at work in the 
world which has been at work from 
the beginning, but of whose pres- 
ence the world has not been hitherto as 
conscious as it is to-day. I refer to the 
principle of unity. Among the nations it 
is making war obsolete. In the churches it 
is breaking down gradually the walls of 
separation that divide church from church. 
Men are becoming conscious — all men, in- 
creasingly, of the truth that beneath relig- 
ions is Religion, and that in ultimate anal- 
ysis all consecrated men and women the 
world and history wide are children of a 
common Father. While they lived there 
were two men, comrades, tender friends, 
representatives of different faiths, who 
worked strongly for the recognition of this 

30 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
truth, Dr. Gustav Gottheil of Temple 
Emanu-El and Bishop Henry Codman 
Potter. As interpreter of the liberalism of 
Bishop Potter it seems fitting therefore that 
Rabbi Joseph Silverman, successor of Gus- 
tav Gottheil, should be with us to-night. 



31 



Rabbi Joseph Silverman 

THE type of a man represented by 
Bishop Potter has already been de- 
scribed in the Scriptures in the Thir- 
ty-second Chapter and the Eighth Verse 
of the Book of Isaiah in these terms: "The 
liberal man deviseth liberal things, and by 
liberal things shall he be established.'' 
That is the text, and Bishop Potter is 
the commentary. He was a whole-souled, 
broad-gauged man, not hemmed in by the 
narrow confines of a creed or the limitations 
of a ritual or the straits of Bible interpre- 
tation. He was a man before he was a 
churchman. He was a man, and whatever 
pertained to man could not be foreign to 
him. He had convictions of his own and 
everyone knew where he stood on matters 
of theology, but he was broad-minded 

32 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

enough to know and to recognize that the 
religious liberty which gave him the right 
to believe and to pray as he wished gave 
every man the same right, and he never 
attempted and never sanctioned any at- 
tempt to curtail, in the least, that privilege 
and inalienable right of man. He was an 
American in the true sense of the word and 
he carried his Americanism into his relig- 
ion. He recognized above all things that 
this country is based upon the total separa- 
tion of church from state, and never would 
he encourage any endeavor to break down 
that fundamental principle of our govern- 
ment. 

In matters of conversion he held most 
liberal views and, though he was ready to 
receive converts to Christianity in general 
and to his own Church in particular, he was 
not in sympathy with the many enterprises 
put forth to win men to the Church by 
winning them away from another religion. 
He believed that to persuade men, in any 
way to induce them to leave a religion in 
which they were born and to which their 
hearts clung and to which the hearts of 

33 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

their fathers and their mothers and their 
children clung, was not the true sphere of a 
missionary. He would take Christianity to 
those people who were entirely devoid of 
religion. To convert the barbarian, to 
convert the heathen, to convert the skeptic, 
to convert the agnostic, to convert the crim- 
inal, to convert any immoral man or im- 
moral woman, because such have no relig- 
ion, is the duty of a missionary thought 
Bishop Potter. He was not an aggressive 
Christian; he was in no sense an intolerant 
religionist; but he was more than tolerant: 
he was hospitable to all religions and in- 
vited them to his mind and to his heart. 
There are some good religious people who 
believe that in order to show their devo- 
tion to their own religion, they must be ex- 
clusive; they must be one-sided. Bishop 
Potter believed in inviting all religions to a 
common belief in the fatherhood of man- 
kind. He was broad-minded and liberal 
enough to recognize all synods and ecclesi- 
astical bodies and was patient enough to 
give a hearing to the claims of other re- 
ligions and other churches besides his own. 

34 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
Basic to this attitude of his toward religion 
was his profound knowledge of the psychol- 
ogy of religious development. He knew 
and recognized that religion does not come 
to a man in a day, in an hour, in a mo- 
ment, but that religion is the result of gen- 
eration upon generation of spiritual her- 
itage, plus home training and environment 
and the potent, irresistible influences of 
Sunday-school, Church, and society. A 
man's convictions in theology and habits 
of religious observance are fixed before his 
period of mental discrimination arrives ; and 
when the mental forces do come that give 
him the power to analyze creeds and rites, 
then his soul is already held captive by 
sentiments and by ties which no amount 
of ratiocination can destroy. So thought 
Bishop Potter; and, believing that, he was 
entirely free from any taint of religious prej- 
udice. To be antagonistic to a human be- 
ing because of a difference in religion, to 
ridicule him, to hate him, to attack him, to 
persecute him was entirely foreign to the 
noble nature and character of Bishop Pot- 
ter. Religious persecution seemed to him 

35 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
an abomination and a blasphemy. He was 
opposed to this clashing of the creeds, 
to the warfare of churches, to the historic 
battles of religions, and he devoted his life 
not merely to breaking down barriers 
that separated men into sects and hostile 
churches, but rather to creating a fraternity 
of churches; to bringing men together to 
see the light and the truth with their 
own minds and to love God with their 
own hearts. 

To sum up his liberalism, not only in 
religion but in all directions, let me end 
with words that I have already used on an- 
other similar occasion: This ecclesiastical 
star has fallen out of our horizon, but the 
light that he has emitted has not been 
darkened, though its source has been cut 
off. The city has been benefited by his 
liberalism. Many institutions have profited 
through his liberality in their inception and 
development, and thousands upon thou- 
sands of human beings have been strength- 
ened in mind, in heart, and in spirit by his 
words of beauty and of strength. The pol- 
iticians have been brought up with a round 

36 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

turn, civic righteousness has been empha- 
sized, patriotism has been stimulated; cap- 
ital and labor have been taught to love one 
another; the rich and the poor have been 
admonished to respect one another. The 
clergy have been taught to live up to their 
standards of faith and of practice, and have 
been influenced in their lives by the indus- 
try, the dignity, the culture, the sweetness 
and the light that this man gave forth. 
Jew and Gentile have been taught to un- 
derstand one another better. Religious prej- 
udice has, in a sense, received its coujp de 
grace; and the millennium, it seems to me, 
has been brought a little closer through the 
life and the work of this Vicar of Heaven, 
of this meteor that has passed. 



37 



The Chairman 

RICHARD WATSON GILDER, who 
was associated with the work of 
the first Tenement House Com- 
mission which led to the enactment of the 
Tenement House Laws, is with us to-night, 
and has kindly consented to repeat the 
poem which he read at the memorial ser- 
vice to Bishop Potter, held recently by the 
Century Association. 



38 



The Warrior- Priest 

BISHOP HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

BY 

RICHARD WATSON GILDER 

He was our warrior-priest, beneath whose gown 
The mailed armor took full many a dent 
When, at the front, all gallantly he went, 
In civic fight, to save the beloved town; 

Then did the proud, outrageous foe go down, 
To shame and wide disaster swiftly sent. 
Struck by his steel to flight — in wonderment 
To see that calm brow wear the battle frown. 

For he was courteous as a knight of eld. 
And he the very soul of friendliness; 
The spirit of youth in him lost never its power; 

So sweet his soul, his passing smile could bless; 
But this one passion all his long life held: 
To serve his Master to the last lingering hour. 



39 



The Chairman 

EVERY group that works primarily 
for its own interests (human society 
is necessarily divided into groups) 
lays itself open to criticism. Organized 
labor lies open to criticism, and its leaders 
will be the first to recognize this fact; yet, 
in judging of its achievements, intelligent 
students of social conditions agree that 
there has not been, that there is not in ac- 
tion to-day a force as potential as organized 
labor in reorganizing wisely and in the 
sense of fraternity, human society. That fact 
Bishop Potter recognized and was ever 
the steadfast friend, the wise counsellor 
of organized labor. There are delegates 
of the Central Federation of this city and of 
the Federation of Brooklyn here to-night as 
living witnesses to the friendship, comrade- 

40 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
ship that organized labor felt toward Bishop 
Potter, and I have a message from Presi- 
dent Samuel Gompers: 

"I should, indeed, be glad to attend the 
memorial service to be held at Cooper Union 
on Sunday evening, December 20th, but 
circumstances beyond my control prevent. 
A movement for the social betterment of 
all the people had no stancher advocate nor 
more earnest worker than Bishop Potter. 
In the best sense he was a broad-minded 
man. His sympathy for the hard lot of his 
fellows was kind and deep; he was consci- 
entious, straightforward, highly spiritual, 
and in the highest sense a profoundly re- 
ligious man. 

^'It was my privilege to be thrown in 
contact with Bishop Potter and to know 
his eloquent pleas for justice, for social 
and moral uplift. His every word, his 
every act, was an effort and an appeal for a 
higher and better life for all. 

"I again express my regret that circum- 
stances are such as to prevent my being 
present to aid in the tribute in honor of the 

41 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

memory of so great and good a man, my 
friend, the late Henry Codman Potter/' 

Samuel Gompers, 
President of American Federation of Labor. 

We have with us as representative of 
Samuel Gompers, of the American Federa- 
tion of Organized and Unorganized Labor, 
John Mitchell, late President of the United 
Mine Workers of America. 



42 



John Mitchell 

MR. CHAIRMAN, Ladies and Gen- 
tlemen: In the death of Bishop 
Potter the wage-earners of our coun- 
try lost a real friend and a conscientious 
and earnest adviser. It was my privilege 
during the past few years to have been as- 
sociated with him in the work of the In- 
dustrial Department of the National Civic 
Federation, and during that time I learned 
to appreciate how fully he sympathized 
with the hopes, the purposes, and the as- 
pirations of the poor. I learned to know 
how anxious he was to do something help- 
ful in ameliorating their condition. 

No words of eulogy that I might utter, 
now that he is gone, would be a higher trib- 
ute to him than is a telegram which I was 
authorized to send just prior to the great 

43 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

coal strike of 1902. This telegram was ad- 
dressed to the Presidents of the Railroad 
Companies who controlled the production 
of coal in the anthracite fields. On the 
8th day of May, 1902, I submitted 'Hhat a 
Committee, composed of Archbishop Ire- 
land and Bishop Potter and one other per- 
son whom these two may select, be author- 
ized to make an investigation of the wages 
and conditions of employment existing in 
the anthracite field, and if they decide that 
the average annual wages received by an- 
thracite mine workers are sufficient to enable 
them to live and maintain and educate their 
families in a manner conformable to Amer- 
ican standards and consistent with Ameri- 
can citizenship, we agree to withdraw our 
claims for higher wages and more equi- 
table conditions of employment." Had this 
proposition met the approval of the mine 
owners the anthracite coal strike, which 
cost you people of New York so much and 
which entailed so much suflFering and hard- 
ship upon the mine workers of Pennsyl- 
vania, would have been averted. Organ- 
ized labor had confidence in these men. 

44 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
We expected, of course, that for humani- 
tarian reasons alone we would have secured 
some redress, but we also knew that their 
business acumen would have prevented 
them from giving to us any consideration 
to which we were not entitled. 

Ever present in the mind of Bishop Pot- 
ter seemed to be a living realization of the 
fact that the Divine Master Himself was a 
workman, a workman who felt and knew 
all the trials and hardships of the workmen 
of His day. This spirit is reflected in a 
letter addressed by Bishop Potter to the 
Church Association for the Advancement of 
the Interests of Labor, in which he said: 
"Too long has the Church suffered from 
that same suspicion of mind which has re- 
garded social questions, the rights of the 
wage-earners, the protection of the poor, 
the succor of the needy, and the joint or- 
ganization of labor as though they were 
questions, in the light of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, of secondary importance. He did 
not so regard them nor discuss them, and 
the picture which our Divine Master draws 
of social society constituted along the line 

45 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

of His Divine Gospel, are portraitures of a 
society in which mutual service and self- 
sacrifice were the underlying lines.'" This 
beautiful sentiment was expressed by Bish- 
op Potter only a short time before his death, 
and of all his great work it will stand as the 
expression of a man who, though pre- 
eminent in his vocation, was ever mindful 
of the interests and the needs of that great 
body of men and women and children who 
were least able to protect themselves. 

Organized labor was fortunate in having 
for its friend and adviser Bishop Potter. 
His presence and his counsel restrained the 
overimpetuous, just as it gave courage to 
the overtimid. His sympathy, his sympa- 
thetic co-operation gave strength and dig- 
nity to that great body of men and women 
who through the organizations of labor are 
trying to work out a noble destiny. Or- 
ganized labor needs more Bishop Potters. 
We are not self-sufficient. The great pow- 
erful army of labor, organized now, is not of 
itself able to work out to a successful fruition 
the ideals for which it stands. We must 
have the sympathetic co-operation of all 

46 



HENRY COD MAN POTTER 
right-thinking people, and I repeat again 
that we were fortunate in having Bishop 
Potter as one of our real friends. It has 
been well said that a free man is one who 
lives in a country where there are no slaves ; 
and the happy man is one who lives in a 
country where there is no misery; and I 
could not help thinking, when one of the 
previous speakers was addressing you, re- 
ferring to some one who said Bishop Potter 
was at times depressed, that in my judg- 
ment, if Bishop Potter was ever unhappy, 
it was because he knew that others were 
unhappy. 



47 



The Chairman 

BEFORE he became Bishop of New 
York, Dr. Potter was active as a pub- 
lic servant. From the period of his 
elevation to the Bishopric the conspicuous- 
ness of his station called upon him to serve 
constantly and he gave that service willingly 
according to his power. One who was as- 
sociated with him in many fields of public 
service and who by the steadfastness, sin- 
cerity, and unselfishness of his own service 
has merited well of us all, Hon. Seth Low, 
will interpret this side of Bishop Potter's 
activity. 



48 



Hon. Seth Low 

FELLOW CITIZENS: One sometimes 
chooses a text and then finds that his 
thought runs along a little different 
channel. I must speak to you to-night of 
Bishop Potter as I think of him; and if I 
do not completely cover the field of his 
public activity, at least you will get another 
light upon that man who loved the people 
and whom the people loved. I am very 
sure that as we have listened to one and 
another as they have spoken of him, we 
have been recalling to ourselves that fa- 
miliar face and fine presence. But that 
does not mean that we think that the man 
himself has come to an end. That, how- 
ever, is the best that we can do, for it 
belongs to the limitations of our human 
nature that we cannot image to ourselves a 

49 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

spirit without a body. . . . Yet we all know 
that it is the things that are seen which 
perish; it is the things that are not seen 
that are eternal. I want to present to you 
as vividly as I can, by one or two illustra- 
tions, some of the qualities of the character 
of Bishop Potter that seem to me to defy 
death. Very early in life he dedicated him- 
self to the service of men in the ministry of 
the church. His services to the church of 
his choice are not our theme to-night; but 
I think that it does belong to our theme to 
show how he interpreted that service in his 
bearing toward his fellow men. I like to 
recall that on the afternoon of the very day 
on which he was consecrated as Bishop, he 
conducted a service at the Midnight Mis- 
sion; and, on the Sunday following his con- 
secration, he preached upon Blackwell's 
Island. So Bishop Potter, in the very first 
acts of his official life, seems to me to have 
claimed brotherhood with the fallen and the 
vicious and the afflicted. There was pity 
in his action, I have no doubt. That he 
was moved by profound sympathy for these 
unfortunate people, I have no doubt. That 

50 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
he believed it a part of the duty of a bishop 
I have no doubt. But I think there was in 
it, if I have read his character aright, in 
addition, that subtle something which I 
have called claiming his brotherhood with 
them; for we can only really help those with 
whom we are truly akin, and it belonged to 
the character of Bishop Potter to claim and 
not to disown such relationship. 

I think we see the same trait illustrated 
by him in other ways. He was personally 
devoted to the work of the Church Institute 
for Seamen, because he realized that Jack 
was often forgotten; because he realized that 
on sea and land he was often oppressed. 
It was because he realized that the sailor 
was peculiarly exposed to that sort of in- 
difference which is expressed in our prov- 
erb, "'Out of sight, out of mind,'' that 
Bishop Potter gave a distinctly large part 
of his official activity to making provision 
in this seaport for better treatment of the 
sailors who land upon our shores. And so 
again he organized, as I remember, cer- 
tainly he was very effective in the work of 
the Church Actors' Alliance. It is not so 

51 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
very long ago, you know, when very many 
Christian people looked upon the play ac- 
tor as a man outside the pale; when large 
bodies of Christians looked upon it as a 
mortal sin to go to the theatre. Because 
Bishop Potter recognized behind all the 
fierce temptations of that profession the 
good men and the good women in it, the 
great opportunity for good ministry upon 
the stage, he organized this Church Alli- 
ance to say to the actors of the country, for 
it is a national organization, "the Church 
needs you and you belong to it just as much 
as any other men and women in the whole 
land." 

Mr. Mitchell has spoken to you of his 
relations to organized labor, and behind 
those relations lay that same spirit of claim- 
ing brotherhood with the masses of the 
people. 

I suppose that nothing he did subjected 
him to so much criticism as his relation to 
the subway tavern. Dr. Grant says that 
the relation was misunderstood, and that 
the Bishop never explained. I do not know 
myself what it was. I only know that he 

52 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

was cruelly criticised for the attitude that 
he took, and I know that the tavern which 
he hoped would be useful failed of its pur- 
pose. But Bishop Potter did not fail. He 
said, by his action on that occasion, that he 
was ready, in the interest of the masses of 
men who, for want of any better social op- 
portunity, go to the saloons; he said to all 
of these men, whom so many of us forget 
too often, "'I am ready to sacrifice my rep- 
utation, if I must, with the good Christian 
people of my own Church and of all the 
churches, if thereby I can show to you that 
I care.'' Bishop Potter did not fail! So 
I think we may fairly say of him that it was 
indeed, as that member of his family said, 
whom Prof. Sprague Smith quoted, the 
paramount trait in his character, not merely 
to recognize the brotherhood of man, but 
that that trait in his character was so ac- 
tive, that he sought to claim that brother- 
hood for himself from every creature in the 
world. It was not something that he was 
giving only; it was something that he was 
asking for. 
Now I ask you to turn for a moment to 
53 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

his more public side. You will remember 
that he was the chosen preacher at the great 
service in St. Paul's Church, on Broad- 
way, which was held during the exercises 
commemorating the centennial of this Re- 
public. Present in his audience were the 
President of the United States and many 
of the chief officials of the land. Many 
preachers would have used the occasion 
simply for a review of what had taken place 
during the hundred years that were being 
celebrated; and Bishop Potter did not fail 
in that duty. But he recognized that as a 
preacher of righteousness he owed a higher 
duty to the American people, at that time 
and on that occasion; and so he smote the 
spoils system hip and thigh then and there 
in language that shook the land. From 
that day to this — before that day also of 
course — but from that day to this, steady 
progress has been made in the substitution 
of the merit system in the appointment to 
public office in the United States, as against 
the old system of dividing the spoils. Now 
Bishop Potter attacked the spoils system, 
not because it was a political contrivance; 

54 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

but because he saw, with the eye of the 
seer, that no country could endure based 
upon that sort of corruption. Because he 
saw that, and believed it to be a message 
from on high, he delivered it with the ear- 
nestness of a Prophet of God. 

I think he did a similar service for the 
city of New York, when he wrote to Mayor 
Van Wyck the letter to which Dr. Grant 
has already alluded. It brought home to 
the people of the city in scorching language 
the city's shame. It struck with the smart 
of the lash the men who were responsible 
for the city's shame, and they quivered 
under it, because they knew that the mo- 
ment that the people of the city of New 
York saw things as they were, that moment 
the things as they were would be over- 
thrown. I count it a great piece of good 
fortune that the city of New York has, in 
Rabbi Wise, to-day, a man who does not 
fear to say to individuals who have short 
memories in regard to those days of shame, 
with all the fervor and with all the direct- 
ness of an Israelitish Prophet of old, ''Thou 
art the man.'' 

55 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
So the second quality in Bishop Potter 
that I ask you to think of, and to meditate 
upon, is that splendid patriotism, that sort 
of civic pride in nation, state, and city 
which St. Paul illustrated when he said that 
he was a citizen of Tarsus, "a, citizen of no 
mean city''; that sort of citizenship that 
recognizes that the only enduring greatness, 
the only foundation for enduring great- 
ness is righteousness; that sort of citizen- 
ship that will make no compromise with evil ; 
that sort of citizenship that holds aloft al- 
ways and everywhere the highest ideals of 
which we are capable. Those are the two 
thoughts of Bishop Potter on his public 
side that linger always in my mind; that 
active seeking for the recognition of broth- 
erhood, and that burning patriotism that 
wishes to respect in order that it may love. 



56 



The Chairman 

BEFORE I introduce President Booker 
T. Washington, I want to point out 
the fact that the dominant note to- 
night in the music has been the note of 
triumph, the note that should have been 
struck, and we fail to carry away the mes- 
sage of this meeting, the right record in 
memory, if this note of triumph does not 
continue to sound in us and inspire us, my 
brothers, with fuller faith in that brother- 
hood of man wherein we profess constant 
belief and, to a more complete consecra- 
tion of personal service until that ideal 
shall be attained. 

Every crime bears with it its atonement. 
Often the payment of that atonement is 
slow indeed. When the white race invaded 
the Dark Continent and carried off tens of 

57 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

thousands, hundreds of thousands of our 
dark-skinned brothers, landing only the 
tithe of them on our shores — the tithe that 
survived the carnage of the sword and the 
horrors of the passage in the hold of the 
slave ships — a crime was committed for 
which time and justice demand atonement. 
Had not these acts been committed, we 
should probably have developed as a ho- 
mogeneous people. Because of that crime 
we are facing a grave race problem, one of 
the gravest of all social problems. How is 
it to be solved.^ Time is to solve it. Yes, 
but time works chiefly through human 
agencies, through the agency of the wise, 
the consecrated, through such men in the 
white race as William Henry Baldwin and 
Henry Codman Potter, and such men in 
the black race as Booker T. Washington. 

Bishop Potter was, in a sense, born to the 
purple, to the dignity of family, to the dig- 
nity of station. Booker T. Washington was 
born to the shame of slavery that ignored 
and denied the dignity, the purity of the 
family relation; he was born to the estate 
of a bondman, but by the innate kingliness 

58 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

of his nature he has lifted himself until, to 
the glory of America, to the honor of all 
men, he stands to-day peer of the kingliest 
of the free born. He will speak to us of the 
service rendered his race by Bishop Potter. 



59 



Booker T. Washington 

MR. SPRAGUE SMITH, Ladies and 
Gentlemen : I am most grateful to 
you, Mr. Chairman, and to the fam- 
ily of Bishop Potter for the privilege of 
having some part in this memorial service. 
I count it as a high and gracious privilege 
that my race should be thought of and in 
some degree recognized on this precious 
and holy occasion. The first time I had 
the privilege of meeting Bishop Potter was 
on this wise. I had entered the Hampton 
Institute in Virginia as a student after I 
had walked from my former home in West 
Virginia. I received my diploma after 
working my way through that institution, 
and on the day that I graduated Bishop 
Potter was upon the platform and heard 
my graduating address; and immediately 

60 



HENRY COD MAN POTTER 
after I had finished speaking (and I may 
add that I knew much more at that time 
than I know now) he came across the plat- 
form, took my hand, and said to me: ''If 
you ever come to New York and want a 
friend, come in and see me,'' and to the day 
of his death Bishop Potter kept that prom- 
ise. I not only had the gracious privilege 
of counting him as my personal friend but 
as the friend of my race. I had ample op- 
portunity to test his friendship, to find out 
something of his deep and abiding interest 
in my race. From his constant contact 
with that great man General Armstrong, it 
was my privilege to receive on several oc- 
casions the gracious hospitality of his home ; 
and I shall never forget how on one occa- 
sion, when I came to New York in quest 
of money, in quest of friends to carry on 
our work at Tuskegee, how I went to 
him and asked if he would not appear 
at a public meeting in Madison Square 
Garden Concert Hall and be one of the 
speakers. 

I remember how he looked over his 
programme for the evening. He had already 

61 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

upon that programme two other engage- 
ments for that evening, but he said to me, 
''If the meeting lasts long enough, I will 
appear upon your platform,'' and I remem- 
ber how at half-past ten in the evening, 
after a hard day's work and a still more 
severe evening's work Bishop Potter ap- 
peared upon that platform to speak for us. 

The last time that I remember seeing him 
in a public gathering w^as in a meeting 
called to further the interests of one of the 
churches of my race in this city, and not 
the Church of his own special denomina- 
tion; but I shall never forget how, after a 
busy Sunday morning, he came into this 
crowded little negro church, weary as he 
seemed to me in body, and how for an hour 
he poured out his great soul before that 
audience of colored men and women. 

That represented Bishop Potter. I al- 
ways found the advice which Bishop Potter 
gave to me concerning my race and concern- 
ing the affairs of Tuskegee Institute safe 
and sound. He was one of those rare men 
who, it seems to me, always kept his feet 
upon the earth; and it is a great thing for 

62 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
all of us, my friends, I do not care to what 
race or nation we belong, to learn to keep 
our feet upon the earth. 

I like to keep in touch with real things, 
with real men, not artificial things, not 
with artificial men, and when I am at my 
own home in Tuskegee I never let a day 
pass by, if I can prevent it, without getting 
my hoe and my shovel and going out into 
my own garden and digging down into the 
soil. I like to be sure that once a day, or 
as often as possible, I am touching the 
earth — that I am touching the real thing; 
and as often as possible I like to leave the 
artificialities of the city life, with all its 
perplexities and temptations, and get back 
into the country, into the wilds and into the 
cabin of some farmer, where I am sure that 
I am in contact with a real man. 

So whenever I touched Bishop Potter, 
whether in his home or whether on public 
occasions, I always felt that I was in touch 
with a real man; a man who was too large 
to be little; a man who was too high to be 
low. In him the negro race, ten million 
strong, always felt and always knew that 

63 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

it had a strong, consistent, and courageous 
friend. 

In him the negro race always felt and 
always knew that it had a friend who was 
never afraid of losing his social status in 
the world by touching a member of a lowly 
or disadvantaged race ; and in the last analy- 
sis I always find in my experience that the 
individuals who have real social position in 
the world are never afraid of losing that 
position by being kind to members of other 
races. It requires no courage, and no man 
knew that better than Bishop Potter, for a 
strong man to kick a weak man down, and 
no man realized more than did Bishop Pot- 
ter that one man or one race cannot hold 
another man or another race down in the 
ditch w^ithout remaining down in the ditch 
with him. One of the advantages, if I may 
so describe it, of belonging to a disadvan- 
taged race, as the world understands it, 
is the opportunity for the individual to 
study and to have the privilege of testing 
true greatness. The time and the place to 
study the real character, the real strength 
that an individual possesses, to find out 

64 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

whether he is a gentleman of the true type, 
is not to study him when he is in contact 
with those of his own race and with those 
who belong to his own social rank, but to 
know him when he is in contact with those 
whom the world considers beneath him. 

Judged, my friends, by that test, the only 
test, the truest test of what a true gentle- 
man means. Bishop Potter was one of the 
greatest souls I ever met. When in contact 
with him one forgot his creed, forgot his 
race, forgot everything except his consum- 
ing desire to serve his fellow-man. He had 
courage of the true kind in performing his 
duty. He did not stop to ask whether oth- 
ers would consider his actions proper; how 
the world would regard them; whether he 
would be popular. His one question, and 
by that he was always guided, as I knew 
him, was: ''Is it the right thing to do.?" and 
when Bishop Potter determined in his own 
conscience that a certain action was right, 
he performed that action, though all the 
world frowned. His memory to-night is 
too great, is too precious to be claimed by a 
single church, by a single city, by a single 

65 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 
race; and my race, ten million strong in 
America, claims the right to have some part 
in cherishing and keeping alive the memory 
of Bishop Henry Codman Potter. 

I do not like to think of him and to speak 
of him to-night as being dead, for in the 
larger and broader sense Bishop Potter is 
not dead. He Kves to-night ! His influence is 
more powerful in this city, among my race, 
and throughout this country than it has 
ever been. True, we have in this country 
the habit of cursing our great men while they 
live and reserving a blessing for them after 
they have passed away; but men like Gen- 
eral Samuel Chapman Armstrong, men of 
the type of Phillips Brooks and of Abraham 
Lincoln and Bishop Henry C. Potter do not 
die; and, my friends, throughout this coun- 
try no group of people will revere his mem- 
ory longer, nor be guided by his lessons, by 
his teachings, more truly; no group of peo- 
ple will be longer inspired, longer helped 
than w^ill the ten million of black people 
in this country, and in their hearts he 
will always have a place, because in him 
the only test for any man, for any race, was 



HENRY CODMAN POTTER 

whether or not that man, or that race, 
could be of service to the world. 

To him, in the highest and broadest 
sense, a man whatever his race, whatever 
his creed, whatever his color, was always a 
man "for a' that and a' that/' 



67 



SEP 15 1909 



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